I have a QStarz BT-Q1000XT gps travel recorder/datalogger; It’s a great bit of kit but rather Windows-centric..
However! it should work using BT747 on Linux. BT747 is a Java tool designed to manipulate all of the poular MTKII chipset based dataloggers out there, not Just QStarz units, but Holux and others too.
While there are many instructions for getting this working with Ubuntu I could not find any recent info for Fedora; so I thought I’d write up my experience of getting this going on my Fedora system. I have tested this on both Fedora 16 and 17.
(Note; the MS Windows software that came with the QStarz unit is Ok these days; the latest release of their travelplanner software is, in my opinion, not too bad. And much more suitable than BT747 for, say, my dad or sister.)
When I connect the BT-Q1000XT and watch /var/log/messages I see:
$ sudo tail /var/log/messages Apr 12 15:43:12 myhost kernel: [ 741.660046] usb 5-1: new full-speed USB device number 4 using uhci_hcd Apr 12 15:43:12 myhost kernel: [ 741.815122] usb 5-1: New USB device found, idVendor=0e8d, idProduct=3329 Apr 12 15:43:12 myhost kernel: [ 741.815126] usb 5-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=3, Product=4, SerialNumber=0 Apr 12 15:43:12 myhost kernel: [ 741.815129] usb 5-1: Product: GPS Receiver Apr 12 15:43:12 myhost kernel: [ 741.815131] usb 5-1: Manufacturer: MTK Apr 12 15:43:12 myhost kernel: [ 741.823171] cdc_acm 5-1:1.1: ttyACM0: USB ACM device Apr 12 15:43:12 myhost mtp-probe: checking bus 5, device 4: "/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.2/usb5/5-1" Apr 12 15:43:12 myhost mtp-probe: bus: 5, device: 4 was not an MTP device
Look at the 6th line, this tells us the device is appearing on /dev/ttyACM0
From the BT747 site I ignored the non-functional Java Web Start stuff and followed the link to SourceForge where I downloaded the latest Development Release version (v2.1.4 the last time I checked) and saved it in my downloads folder. This package contains all the various versions, Windows/Mac/Linux desktop, plus the J2ME and PDA versions all in one package.
You can use the standard Java for Fedora; and it works fine on both 32 and 64 bit systems (I use it on my 64-bit desktop and my 32-bit netbook, the developers have done a great job of getting all this stuff working in the latest releases and many of the old caveats about using Sun Java etc. seem to have been resolved. Here is my environment on my desktop:
$ uname -a Linux myhost.local.net 3.3.1-3.fc16.x86_64 #1 SMP Wed Apr 4 18:08:51 UTC 2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux $ cat /etc/fedora-release Fedora release 16 (Verne) $ java -version java version "1.7.0_b147-icedtea" OpenJDK Runtime Environment (fedora-2.1.fc16.1-x86_64) OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 22.0-b10, mixed mode)
Unzip the downloaded package into a suitable folder:
$ mkdir ~/bt747 ; cd ~/bt747/ ; unzip [path.to.downloaded.folder]/[download].zip
On Fedora 16 You also need to install the Fedora RXTX package, however I did not need to do this with Fedora 17:
$ sudo yum install rxtx
As is commonly documented BT747 wont work as standard due to permissions on the lockfile folder:
* You can enable access with (I do this in the script that starts BT747):
$ sudo chmod a+x /var/run/lock
Having done this I then tried to run:
$ ./run_j2se.sh $ ./lib/rxtx-2.2pre2-bins/Linux/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu PATH = /usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/home/ocarter/.local/bin:/home/ocarter/bin 1994 - BT747 2.1.0 Build:BT747_mdeweerd.0.20120411231431933 1995 - Initial: 1019x575 Screen: 1920x1080 Final: 1019x575 1995 - Linux 1995 - amd64 1995 - 3.3.1-3.fc16.x86_64 1995 - 1.7.0_b147-icedtea 1995 - 64 1995 - Fail com.sun.java.swing.plaf.windows.WindowsLookAndFeel Fail com.sun.java.swing.plaf.windows.WindowsClassicLookAndFeel Success com.sun.java.swing.plaf.nimbus.NimbusLookAndFeel javax.swing.plaf.metal.MetalLookAndFeel javax.swing.plaf.nimbus.NimbusLookAndFeel com.sun.java.swing.plaf.motif.MotifLookAndFeel com.sun.java.swing.plaf.gtk.GTKLookAndFeel
So far so good; The ‘Fail‘ messages are really just a warning that it cannot use it’s preferred window style.
I get the GUI up and can use it, but when I enter the device in the connect box (/dev/ttyACM0) it fails to connect and I get errors:
65604 - Classgps.connection.GPSRxTxPort
WARNING: RXTX Version mismatch
Jar version = RXTX-2.2pre1
native lib Version = RXTX-2.2pre2
gnu.io.NoSuchPortException
at gnu.io.CommPortIdentifier.getPortIdentifier(CommPortIdentifier.java:269)
at gps.connection.GPSRxTxPort.openPort(Unknown Source)
...
[snip many lines of tedious, pointless and distracting backtrace info]
...
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(EventDispatchThread.java:105)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.run(EventDispatchThread.java:90)
65622 -
Listing known ports:
65623 - Port opened
Much searching around and I found this is due to 1) permissions on the USB device and 2) A need to explicitly add this USB device to the available devices of gnu.io.rxtx
To verify I could see that the USB serial device is connecting and producing data; but permissions are wrong and my user cannot read it.
$ cat /dev/ttyACM0 cat: /dev/ttyACM0: Permission denied
But the same command run as the root user works:
$ sudo cat /dev/ttyACM0 $PMTK011,MTKGPS*08 $PMTK010,001*2E 00*79 $GPRMC,001255.799,V,,,,,0.00,0.00,060180,,,N*46 ... [data should pour out at high speed, hit CTRL-C to end..]
.. so the device is connected and sending data (yippee!), I just cannot see it yet.
Looking at the device file shows that it’s owner is root, but that it’s group is ‘dialout‘.
$ ls -l /dev/ttyACM0 crw-rw----. 1 root dialout 166, 0 Apr 13 12:44 /dev/ttyACM0
Therefore I need to be in the group: dialout
Look at your current extended groups list:
$ sudo id [myuser]
Then use the usermod command to add ‘dialout‘ as a new extended group:
* due to the way usermod works you must specify ALL the extended groups in one go (separated by commas); which is why I get you the look at them in the step above.. you do not need to give the primary group.
$ sudo usermod -G [existing groups],dialout eg: $ id myuser uid=1001(myuser) gid=1001(myuser) groups=1001(myuser),10(wheel),48(apache) $ sudo usermod -G wheel,apache,dialout myuser $ id myuser uid=1001(myuser) gid=1001(myuser) groups=1001(myuser),10(wheel),48(apache),18(dialout)
You must log out/in to get the new group membership active in your default shells.
* Yes.. I know there are other ways to do that but logging out/in is easiest and fastest for real users..
Now we must pass the correct tty device to gnu.io.rxtx which we do by adding the option ‘-Dgnu.io.rxtx.SerialPorts=/dev/ttyACM0‘ to the Java invocation.
I combine this with the lockfile permissions setting by putting it all into a modified copy of the startup script:
Copy the script and make it executable:
$ cd ~/bt747/ ; cp run_j2se.sh bt747 ; chmod a+rx bt747
Then edit ‘bt747′ and replace the final line with two lines like this:
sudo chmod a+w /var/run/lock
"$JAVA" $MEM_HEAP_OPTION $DEBUG_OPTION $NOPROXY_OPTION -Djava.library.path="${RXTXLIBPATH}" -Dgnu.io.rxtx.SerialPorts=/dev/ttyACM0 -Dbt747_prefix="/dev/ttyACM" bt747.j2se_view.BT747Main $* &
This runs the command to free up the lockdir, and passes the correct option to gnu.io.rxtx (plus I pass another option to help bt747 find the USB device.)
Having done that, and remembering to log out/in, it just works(tm).
I can now run BT747 with:
$ ~/bt747/bt747
The first time of running you might need to enter ‘/dev/ttyACM0‘ in the connect box at the bottom; although it works fine for me with the default ‘USB‘ entry.
The result:
[ Later I Also want to add a review/notes about BT747, which seems very good so far... ]
